


Myosotis laxa

by DragonBandit, witchpuppy



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Bull's personal quest, Epistolary, Human Cole, M/M, Unhappy Ending, Yeah I think with those you can work out what's happening, i think
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 10:44:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6371671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonBandit/pseuds/DragonBandit, https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchpuppy/pseuds/witchpuppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last thing Cole remembers is working up the courage to confess. But that was months ago, and now no one will tell him where Krem is. Varric cites missions, but his smile is cracked at the edges and The Iron Bull no longer looks Cole in the eyes, a heavy weight pushing down on his shoulders. </p>
<p>The only thing Cole has is a letter. Singular. Where are the rest of his letters? What is it that he can't remember?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prose by DragonBandit, letters by Witchpuppy.  
> The premise in general is Witchpuppy's fault. Bandit is merely his enabler. 
> 
> Original post for the prompt is [here](http://otpprompts.tumblr.com/post/54027672338/person-a-and-person-b-are-friends-for-years-but%20)

Cole anchors his hands in the dark strip of cloth that makes up his belt. He breathes in deeply, until his chest hurts from the trapped air before he releases the breath in one shuddering outburst. His stomach still feels like it’s full of fireflies. Lighting up and twisting and turning around his insides.  

He’s perched in his usual corner of the tavern rafters, peering down into the bright, soft warmth that is the lower levels. Floating through the air is the sound of laughter, in the familiar timbre of a person Cole has been dearly missing for the past few weeks. 

The Chargers are back in Skyhold. 

Cole’s heart is beating double time, in sync with the finger he runs over the black ink of the letter he holds carefully in his lap. He’s already read it several times over, the words burned into his memory though the content isn’t anything near to meaningful. At least, not meaningful to anyone but Cole. 

 

_ Cole, _

_ Bet you weren’t expecting another letter so soon right?  _

_ Well the chief’s calling us all back, something about an important mission he didn’t wanna give details about through a letter, we’ll be back sooner than we thought so don’t expect any more letters after this one. _

_ Don’t know when this’ll actually get to you, knowing our luck it’ll be ten minutes before we actually get there. Weather’s been shit,Venatori’s been shit too but we can kill them at least, though one of the nugshits broke my shield again.  Nothing much else has happened. _

_ When we do get back we’re all going to celebrate surviving; so you better be there. You’re sort of one of us now and one of the things that chargers do is all get righteously drunk after kicking scum’s ass. Without a torn up shirt this time, I’m spending the celebrations actually celebrating not mending things so you aren’t shivering again. _

_ Krem _

 

The fireflies whirl and Cole takes in another meant-to-be-steadying breath. His teeth rest on his bottom lip. 

A month ago, Cole became human. A month ago Cole didn’t know how to eat, sleep, or all the other things that made a person living, instead of what Cole had been. A month ago Krem became Cole’s friend. Well, perhaps that is not being completely accurate. Since before they were friends Krem was merely the person who kept making sure Cole remembered to eat. 

Cole still doesn’t know why Krem did that. Though he’s desperately grateful for it. Without those shared meals, Cole would have never gotten to know the warrior. Would have never learned all the hidden and secret things that Krem trusted him with. The things that aren’t hurts but are too light for Cole to see without them being said into the open air to mingle with smiles and a shoulder pressed gently to Cole’s own. 

Never would have fallen in love with him. 

There’s another burst of laughter, Sera as well this time, along with Bull and Krem. Cole’s heart aches, exactly like the way Cassandra’s favourite heroine’s do when they realise that the scoundrel had a heart of gold all along. 

Krem does not have a heart of gold, but Cole’s chest flips and turns regardless.

The stolen green shirt is soft at the hems where Cole worries it with restless fingers. It belongs to Dorian, and therefore is too short and hangs oddly across Cole’s frame. But it is not full of holes, and he isn’t shivering regardless of the fact it seems to be lacking a sleeve.  

He stands up. The fireflies complain, and though it shouldn’t be possible his heart beats even faster. Is this how everyone feels when they fall in love? How do they stand it? Everytime he hears even the slightest hint of Krem’s voice his lips threaten to break into a grin that would cut his face in two. 

Today. He’s going to tell Krem how he feels today. If he doesn’t, Cole thinks he might die from the feelings trapped inside him. 

 

* * *

 

 

Ow, Cole thinks and doesn’t know why. His head aches, and there’s a memory of something heavy in the middle of his chest. He can’t remember where he is. Not an unusual occurrence; while it is harder to make himself forget while he is human, when the pain is bad enough he has managed it. When his help has only cut and cured the hurt into something stronger or stranger, when all he can do is whisper ‘forget’ into ears and hope the suggestion does what it is meant to. 

It has been a very long time since he has forgotten exactly how he got to a room though. It implies that he has wiped hours, instead of the usual minutes that take up an interaction. Cole does not worry about his missing memory, instead looking around the small room that he has found himself in. 

This at least is familiar, once Cole sits up from the bed and notes the chair with it’s pink cushion, chest of overflowing fabrics and desk covered in neatly stacked papers. He’s in Krem’s room. Why is he in Krem’s room? 

There is nothing here that talks to Cole. Well, not useful things anyway. There’s a strip of blue satin that tells Cole that it was made for a birthday present. And the desk complains that one of it’s legs is too short. Cole fixes that with a book he finds underneath Krem’s bed. 

It’s Tevene, and filled with daring battles and loving kisses in a ‘world gone mad’. The book doesn’t mind being used to help the desk. It doesn’t seem to mind anything.

Cole has to rely on his memories of before to work out how he ended up here. To see if he can work out where he is meant to be. It doesn’t help: the last thing he remembers is being in the tavern, holding a letter and trying to get the butterflies to calm down enough so that he could--

Yes!

He has to confess to Krem! Did he already do it? Did it go badly and that’s why he can’t remember the space between going down the stairs to ending up in Krem’s bed? But--no. That doesn’t make sense. Krem would be angry at him if it had gone badly, and if Krem was angry Cole would not be in his bed. He’d be in his own, the small pallet that was usually rolled up in his corner when he didn’t need it. 

Cole doesn’t sleep enough for a fancier bed, no matter how much Krem huffed that it was necessary. There were other people who needed beds more than Cole did. 

He exhales softly, an outlet of frustration that tinges the air. Still, Cole does not know why he is here. And that is strange; he’s never wiped himself enough that his past and present had never connected at all. Not since the hazy memories that make up the Spire before Rhys. 

It is disconcerting. Scary in the way that darkness is, and small spaces when they only contain Cole are. He swallows, annoyance joined now by the cloying, clawing sensation of fear. He doesn’t like fear, has not liked it since the demon pressed it into his head and told him that feeling like that was how Cole became like it. Became  _ wrong. _

He may be human now, but Cole is sure that he is still spirit like enough that he can corrupt and contort himself into something dark and dangerous and demonic. 

There is a note on the door.

 

_ Cole, _

_ The Chargers and I are all going off to help Bull out with that mission I told you about, we’ll be gone for a couple of weeks. I’m not allowed to write to you about anything while we’re gone. All hush hush you know? _

_ While I’m gone you can still use my room. Don’t move back onto the pallet you call a bed, you need somewhere proper to sleep and I need someone to guard my stuff. It’s helpful for both of us alright? _

_ Hopefully I’ll see you soon but like I said we don’t know how long we’ll actually be gone. The whole mission is pretty vague, weird qunari bullshit.  _

_ See you when I see you, _

_ Krem.  _

 

Even on the second try, the letter does not make sense. Cole cannot remember any conversation about missions, save the one that Krem had just been on. The Inquisitor would not let the Chargers go on another mission so close to the end of the last. Supplies would have had to be taken care of, and routes and making sure that the mission would be planned in enough detail that only the Chargers themselves were the only unplanned element. 

Regardless, the last mission had been to clean up a camp of venatori that had decided to take over a keep. Krem had written letters about it in detail, mostly complaining about the endless rain. There had been nothing in that mission about Qunari. 

And then there’s the other part of the letter. A deep pain slashing through every word when Cole picks it up, the creases of it familiar in some part of his muscle memory. He’s read this before; back when he had all of his memories. 

He can’t work out if it’s his pain, or Krem’s or someone else’s. And that, more than not knowing how he got here, or what the day is, or what he’s meant to be doing right now, is the most terrifying part. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

There is a system now, for when Cole forgets where he is meant to be. Put into place after the day where Cole wandered around Skyhold thinking it was time to go to the Hinterlands when that mission had been cancelled due to the Inquisitor gaining a cold. 

The system is the following: Find Solas (or Varric, or Cassandra) and ask what the date and time are. And then ask if there’s anything that he’s meant to be doing today that he needs reminding about. 

There usually isn’t. But it’s better this way, if people know when he’s forgotten things. Cole doesn’t really know why that is. But Varric’s brow doesn’t furrow with lines and Cassandra’s mouth doesn’t turn down in frustrated sadness, so Cole does not argue. 

He clutches the letter between his hands, something else he’s done before--the creases line up. His hands remember the feeling of cheap paper scrunched against his skin. Krem’s room is on the other side of Skyhold from the mage tower; nearer to the Tavern and the training field. Cole feels like a ghost as he crosses the courtyard. No one looks at him, not even the slightest amount. It is strange, but no one looks because he is now a familiar sight. Another member of the Inquisition. Normal to see, easy to disregard. He thinks, it is harder to look into people’s heads now that he is more human than not. 

When he gets to the tower he finds Solas and Varric in an argument. Raised voices and the clash of two points of view refusing to meet in the middle. The chaotic mess of emotion that rises into the air until even people other than Cole can see it. He cannot help, that much is obvious, so he ducks into the shadows and waits for one of them to be able to help him. 

“We can’t keep doing this,” Varric says. Tired to his core. “Shit Chuckles even you have to admit--”

“I do not have to admit anything.” Solas interjects. “It’s your fault to begin with. If you hadn’t persuaded Trevelyan to your point of view we wouldn’t have this problem in the first place.”

“Yeah, you’ve said that before.”

“And yet every time you don’t appear to listen.” 

“I’m sorry I ruined the kid,” Varric says. A flat line. A phrase he says with familiarity, his mouth now used to shaping the sounds. Solas does not say anything in reply. This too feels like a rehearsal. Like the conversations between Bull and Krem that sound hurtful but glance off like rocks skipped across a lake. 

Cole’s mouth makes a confused shape. Kid. They’re talking about him. But he’s not ruined. He’s safe now, a human that can never be bound with blood and turned against everyone he loves. Isn’t he? Yes. Yes he is. He must be otherwise Solas would still make him wear the amulet and would scowl down at dust-ridden tomes to find a solution. 

Solas isn’t doing that. He’s looking down at Varric, both of them impossibly sad with something that Cole can’t quite read. 

“What’s done is done,” Solas eventually says into the heavy, silent sorrow. “We can’t change what you did, or the Inquisitor. Or for that matter the choices of Cole himself. All we can do is help.” 

“Is this really helping?” There’s the rustle of paper. Varric brandishing something into the air. “Hiding his things and telling him pretty stories while the entire keep knows what happened because if we don’t pretend everything is fine he forgets everything?” 

“Where did you find that?” 

“Sera had it.” Varric says, clipped and to the point. “She didn’t tell me where she got it from but I can take a guess.” 

Cole peers into the room. Enough that he can see whatever it is that Varric is holding. An envelope. Heavy duty paper with a name scrawled across it in black ink. C--o… Varric’s hand covers the rest of it but Cole has read those two letters in that handwriting enough times to instantly know what it is. 

The letter is his. Why does Varric have his letter?

“I thought you burned them.” Solas says. 

“What?” Varric steps backwards, the letter going sliding into his pocket. “Tell me you’re joking. As if I’d burn anything this useful.”

“You are not writing a book about this!”

“I can do what I want, It’s not like I can just give them back!”

“Um,” Cole says, framed in the doorway. The echoes of the fight stuttering as he interrupts, “You’re having an argument about me.” A statement, but there’s a lilt in Cole’s throat that changes it into a question. 

Terror. Or something very similar to it rises the air, before abruptly dissipating into something softer, sadder as Varric looks at him and asks, “You’ve forgotten what day it is again, haven’t you kid.” 

“Yes.” Cole does not ask how Varric knows this. Varric always knows, except for the things he doesn’t. “You said that I need to go to you when that happens. Why are you arguing about me?”

“Nothing you need to be worried about.” Solas says. A lie. His next words are the date, and Cole’s stomach drops. 

“No it’s not.” He looks at them both, but Varric does not refute it, and Solas does not look down at a calendar or diary to double check. Instead Cole is met with the horrible realisation that they are right. They can’t be right. But they are. They have no reason to lie to Cole. Not about something as simple as this. 

“But that was months ago.” He says. And then, because the world is spinning around him and his heart is lurching in his chest. A stuttery, panicked tempo. “Where’s Krem?” 

Sorrow. So thick and terrible that Cole flinches. He’s aware he’s saying something. The feelings around him threatening to escape out of his mouth. He swallows it down, replacing it with the question he wants to ask.

“Varric what’s wrong?” 

The sorrow vanishes. No, not quite. It hides, falling into the spaces where Cole can no longer follow. Where the hurts can fester, growing unattended Until they’re monsters of pain. It is not comforting. Especially when Cole cannot tell what the sorrow is about, or even who it is coming from. It feels like the entire room is coated in pain.

“Let’s go somewhere else, kid.” Varric says, “ We can talk about anything you want over a hot meal. I bet you haven’t eaten today yet.”

“I don’t remember,” Cole says. He doesn’t feel hungry. There’s not enough room in his stomach for it. The confusion’s taken up all the space. 

But he follows Varric, and curls his hand into Varric’s pocket to steal the letter that has his name on it. Varric doesn’t notice the theft. Another strange and unsettling thing that Cole can’t help but notice.

Something is very wrong. 

 

* * *

 

 

Cole reads the letter in Krem’s room. Because Krem asked him to look after his things and because the bundle of fabric that Cole usually sleeps in has gone missing.  He curls up on the bed, long limbs tucked into his body. The blanket ends up draped around his shoulders in a cloak. The sheets do not smell like Krem. Cole tries not to hold that against them. 

 

> Cole,
> 
> Thanks for the letter, it finally got to us. I reckon the courier was running after us for a few days to get here, seemed mighty out of breath when he handed it over. We’re on the road again, finally wiped out all the red templars in the area(maker’s tits there were a lot) and we get an urgent message from the boss, as urgent as you can get when you’re communicating by a guy on a horse. Time to go wipe out a small sect of Venatori nearby, and by nearby he actually means days away. We’ve been marching as quick as we can but it’s still taking forever to get there, even my blisters have blisters. 
> 
> Can’t wait to get home. Really it’ll be a long time coming and I cannot wait to sleep on a bed instead of in a tent. You never really realise how much of a luxury beds are until you’re out on the road without one again. Speaking of, you’ve been sleeping in mine right? Like you said you would even when I’m not there. It’s our bed now, I won’t let you just sleep on that collection of barrells and rags you think is an alright place to sleep.
> 
> How’ve you been? You didn’t say much about yourself in your last letter, are you ok? You been eating? You can die and shit now can’t you? Don’t go dying on me now, it’d really suck and I’d miss your lanky arse. Look after yourself while I’m not around so when I get back me and you can spend time together where I’m not fussing over you. After all we never know how long we’ve got before I get called away on another murderfest.
> 
> Love Krem
> 
>  

The inside of the envelope has S.W.A.L.K written on it. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long. Witchpuppy is a BUTT (He told me to write that)


	3. Chapter 3

Cole does not sleep. But he does dream. 

He wakes up crying, and he can’t remember why except that it’s important. 

The letter is clutched in his hand, cheap paper and cheaper ink crumpling together in the spaces between Cole’s fingers. It doesn’t make sense. The letter. Varric. Everything. He wants Krem with an ache in his chest which feels too familiar when Krem has only been gone a day. 

Love Krem. The letter says love Krem and the words flitter through the air tinged red and pink and with promises. In the letter Krem has been gone for weeks and is going to be gone for more. In Cole’s head Krem has just returned and Cole has confessed and he doesn’t remember how Krem reacted or what Krem said. Doesn’t remember how he reacted or what he said either. It’s a black nothing in the line of his memories, a hole that hurts whenever he sticks his tongue in the hole where there used to be a tooth. 

Love Krem. 

He needs the rest of his letters. 

 

* * *

 

He goes to Sera first. Because she knows everything and she isn’t kind enough to lie to him. He goes in daylight, to her cluttered nest of treasures and trinkets and traumas. He stands in the doorway until she scoffs at him and doesn’t give him permission to come in but doesn’t refuse him either. 

“What’s this about then?” she says, nose upturned in mock disgust. She hasn’t hated him for awhile. Cole can’t remember when that happened either.  

“You stole something,” he says. “A letter with my name on it.” his hands fiddle with the ragged hem of his shirt. Pale hands with stark blue veins crisscrossing red patches where he’s rested them against something. 

“Oh, that.” Sera’s voice tries to be hatred but has too much pity in it to manage. “How’d you know about that?”

“Varric had it and then I did. He didn’t think I was listening when I was out of sight.” 

A noise of pure disgust, Sera’s arms flapping by her sides in the way that means she’s upset. “Do you have to make everything go round and round? You can always just say what you mean the first time without making common folk take four times as long to work it out.”

“I do say what I mean.” 

Sera’s eyes narrow. “What do you want me to do for you?”

“Where did you find it?” 

“Find what?” 

“The letter.”

“Under Varric’s bed. Are you going to steal them out from under his nose?”

“Yes.”

Silence. Filled with again that emotion that Cole doesn’t know how to name. It sits bitter at the top of his throat, heavy in his stomach like a stone.

Eventually Sera’s mouth opens around something that she doesn’t want to say but will anyway. 

“Be careful.”

“What do I need to be careful of?” Cole asks. 

“I don’t know!” Sera lies, “Just--there’s a reason you don’t know about what those letters say. Ugh! Why did you have to ask me about this! Get out! Go be weird elsewhere. I can’t deal with you anymore!”

Cole goes. Sera’s relief a candle flickering in a storm of bitter second guessing. He makes a note to give her something nice. She likes bees. Cole will find her a nest so she can make friends with them. 

 

* * *

 

All of Varric’s room is paper. Paper that whispers with stories and confessions and book keeping numbers until the mess of it drips out of Cole’s ears and into confusion. The door was not locked, and Varric is currently three floors away trying to charm Cassandra out of silver and smiles. Cole is a whisper among the other speeches of dead and alive and imaginary friends. 

He tries not to step on any of the letters; they don’t like it. 

The bed is unmade, too many quilts piled in a corner and spilling over the side. Under it is a wooden box that whispers Cole’s name in a voice that makes his heart hurt. Krem. 

He wants to open it now, to see the words and hear the voice. It has been days and Cole misses Krem so badly in every sigh of his breath. He needs to see Krem’s name underneath the scratched “I love you”. He needs to find out what that means. 

Varric’s voice from the other side of the door. He’s forgotten his coin purse--Cassandra wins more when Varric’s distracted. An open window just big enough for Cole to jump through unnoticed as the latch lifts. 

It’s only when he gets to the room he has been sleeping in, once again wrapped in blankets that Cole can open the box and spill its secrets. 

Letters. A box made to have once held boots now is choking with letters. Both from Krem and himself. It is with shaking fingers that Cole traces his name on the front of the top one, and carefully slides the paper from it’s envelope. 

 

* * *

 

> Hey Cole, 
> 
> Sorry for the slow reply. Been busy here, everyone is stressed out. I haven’t really been sleeping so I made you something. It’s just a little thing but I thought you’d like it.  You like nugs right? Well now you have your very own stuffed one made from one of my old shirts (don’t ask what happened to the shirt, it just wasn’t wearable anymore.) Dalish named him Sir Cuddlesworth, you don’t have to keep the name of course but I think the little fella’s gotten attached to it.
> 
> Don’t go worrying about the stressing, we can talk about it when I get home. This is just a tough job you know? Lots of bits and bobs to worry about and not much time for laughing the drinking like usual. I’m sure when I get back you’ll know just what to say to sort it all out in your odd way.
> 
> Now to the important stuff; what’s been going on with the chargers.
> 
> Dalish and Skinner are ridiculous as ever, just yesterday I swear they actually switched clothes by accident. Don’t know how they managed to do that, you’ve seen the difference in clothes they wear. Stylistically they’re two sides of a coin-…

 

Cole drinks in the meticulous ordering of the Chargers and their laundry. It continues for more pages than anyone else would consider necessary or important. Krem likes clothes. Cole likes listening to Krem liking clothes. 

 

> Anyway, until we get done and I get back Sir Cuddlesworth is all yours to keep you company in my stead, let me know how he does.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Krem.


End file.
